Prepared roofing



May 22, 1934.

A. E. F. MOONE arch 28, 19

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Patented May 22, 1%34 rip s PATENT F PREPARED ROOFING Application March 28, 1932, Serial No. 601,567

2 Claims.

This application is a continuation in part of my cop-ending application, Serial No. 437,172, filed March 19, 1930 for improvements in Prepared roofing.

The principal object of this invention is to provide a roofing strip bearing an overlaid reticulated pattern of such design that when the strip is slit longitudinally along a predetermined center line, the strip will be divided into duplicate roofing elements bearing identical patterns and in which the inherent error resulting from manufacturing certain designs in duplicate form is distributed through the design in such a way that it is unnoticeable to the casual observer.

Further and other objects and advantages of the invention will be seen as the disclosure proceeds and the description is read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which Fig. l is a view of the improved roofing as applied to a roof;

Fig. 2 is a detail showing of a portion of the roofing strip;

Fig. 3 shows the appearance of the roll roofing as an article of trade, and illustrates the parting operation first necessary before application to a roof; and

Fig. shows a specific application of the invention to the hexagonal pattern roofing.

In the manufacture of prepared roofing, it is sometimes desirable to apply a printed pattern to the coated side of the roofing strip and simultaneously, or subsequently, slit the sheet longitudinally along a center line following one of the pattern lines. By this method, each roll of roofing material actually comprises two rolls of the roofing element or strip that is applied to a roof. (See Fig. 3.)

There are numerous more or less standard forms of design which have been applied in the past to roofing strips, among which are the hexagonal pattern, diamond point pattern and brick siding pattern. For the purpose of this disclosure, the invention will be described with reference to hexagonal pattern roofing as it forms an apt illustration for the application of this invention.

Let us suppose that a sheet of roofing had printed on its coated face a hexagonal pattern in which all hexagons were of equal size and shape, and all borders between hexagons, of uniform width. If the problem were then presented to modify that pattern so that it could be cut along a center dividing line for separating the sheet into duplicate roofing elements, it at once becomes apparent to any one that the pattern line which is bisected by the cutting blade must be made twice its normal width. At first blush, it would appear that this could be accomplished by merely pulling the component parts of the design away from each other a sufficient distance to provide additional width for the central pattern line. A little experimentation will show that this cannot be done for the portions of the pattern line which run parallel to the strip increase in width to the exact extent that the two parts of the design are separated, while the oblique portions of the pattern line do not increase in width at the same rate. It is, therefore, inevitable that an error will result in applying certain kinds of designs to roofing strips in duplicate form.

The pattern lines of the reticulated strip being of smaller dimension than the spaces which they enclose, a discrepancy in their width is easily discernible. The problem of this invention is to so distribute this error throughout the roofing pattern that the finished product when applied to a roof will show no evidence of the error which is inevitably there.

The human eye seems to be able to detect relatively small differences in the areas of the spaces enclosed by the reticulated lines of a roofing pattern. The error cannot, therefore, be disposed of by merely filling out the narrow portion of the border from the adjacent hexagon. The error is still noticeable when sought to be corrected by such a method. Strangely enough, but true nevertheless, slight variations in the shape of the liexagons are practically unnoticeable provided all of the hexagons have approximately equal areas. It is upon this discovered fact that this invention is based.

In Fig. 4, there is shown a fragment of roofing strip bearing a hexagonal pattern embodying the principles of this invention. All of the dimensions have been given in order that one may more fully understand from this specific disclosure the subject matter which is covered in the appended claims. The specific disclosure, it will be understood, is for the purpose of illustration only and should not be construed as a limitation upon the claims except as may be required by the prior art.

In order to avoid confusion between the dimensions given in Fig. 4 and the reference characters to be applied, the latter, for convenience, will be heavily underscored.

In the illustrative embodiment of the invention, the reference character 10 designates a sheet of roofing material to which an overlaid hexagonal reticulated pattern 11 has been applied.

The pattern divides the sheet into a plurality of enclosed spaces 12, 13 and 14, separated from each other by what, for convenience of description, will be termed pattern lines. The unreticulated portions 15 and 16 of the sheet are used for applying the strips to the roof. In order that the sheet 10 when parted along the cutting or dividing line 17 will bear duplicate patterns, it is necessary for the pattern line 18 to be twice the width of the other pattern lines. If this were to be accomplished by literally pulling apart the designs on opposite sides of the cutting line until the portions 19 of the central pattern line were exactly twice the width of the other pattern lines, it is at once apparent that the oblique portions, 20 of the central pattern line would not be widened to the same extent.

Accordingly, in the present invention, the enclosed spaces 12, 13 and 14 are slightly distorted from their normal hexagonal shape, though still retaining their normal area. This is accomplished in a manner which may be easily understood by reference to the specific illustration given in Fig. 4. It will be noted in this illustration that the inner edges 21 of the hexagons 12 are somewhat shorter than the outer edges 22; the inner edges 23 of the hexagons 13 are slightly longer than the outer edges 24, while the hexagons 14 are left undistorted.

It will also be noted that the line 25 joining the horizontal apexs of the hexagons 12 if extended would not intersect the cutting line, or in other words, would not bisect the horizontal portions 19 of the pattern line 18. Other such relationships which combine to equalize the areas of the enclosed spaces 12, 13 and 14- and still permit a uniform border may be discerned from the specific dimensions given in the illustration.

It will be distinctly understood that the invention is not limited to hexagonal pattern roofing but applies to all cases in which an error is inevitable by forming duplicate patterns on opposite sides of a cutting line running longitudinally of a sheet of prepared roofing. Apparently such error occurs whenever the line which separates the duplicate patterns has portions differing in absolute slope from other portions of the line. The appended claims, are therefore, to be construed in such light.

What I claim, therefore, is:

1. As an article of manufacture, a sheet of prepared roofing bearing a reticulated pattern composed of a plurality of enclosed spaces bordered by pattern lines, said sheet being adapted to be parted along a longitudinal dividing line of varying slope to provide duplicate roofing elements, all of the enclosed spaces being of substantially equal area, and all of the borders being of uniform width.

2. As an article of manufacture, a sheet of prepared roofing bearing an overlaid hexagonal recticulated pattern capable of being divided into duplicate roofing elements by slitting the sheet down a longitudinal angular center line bisecting one of the pattern lines, said pattern being so designed and proportioned that each of theroofing elements when divided will comprise hexagons of substantially equal area bordered by pattern lines of uniform width.

ALBERT E. F. MOONE.

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